


Purpose

by colorBlip



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Spinel - Freeform, Spinel just wants to understand, Steven Universe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24268096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorBlip/pseuds/colorBlip
Summary: Spinel just wants to understand. Maybe Steven can help her.
Relationships: Spinel & Steven Universe, Spinel/Steven Universe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Purpose

**Author's Note:**

> Set some time after the movie. enjoy lol

“And then…  _ and then…!  _ Pearl gave me something that  _ wasn’t  _ donuts!!” A pink pigtailed gem shouted in such distress over her mentioned dilemma.

“And, ...did you tell her no thanks?” 

Spinel froze. Then she bursts into laughter. “No thanks? Oh, no no no. I threw it back at her!”

But Steven never has any clue of what she was going on about. So like he always did, he decided that he’d just roll with it. 

After Spinel finally calmed down from her laughing fit, she wiped a comical tear from her eye and went straight to interrogating Steven. “What are you even doing out here anyway?” 

Looking skyward, he stroked his chin while he thought briefly. “Mmm, I dunno?” 

Steven didn’t understand why everything had to be done for a reason with Spinel. He wasn’t outside because he  _ had _ to be, it was because he  _ wanted  _ to be.

She folded her arms, looking at something in the distance.  _ “Figured as much…”  _ she mumbled.

Then he visibly brightened up after he got an idea.  _ “ _ Maybe not. _ Buuut  _ do you wanna dance with me?” 

His offer was more of a rhetorical one when he had already grabbed one of her hands and pulled her towards him with more force than he had intended. 

She let out a yelp before her face crashed into his chest. She shouted, but thankfully for Steven — it was muffled into his shirt. He rolled his eyes. She was  _ always  _ complaining about something…

Not that he cared very much, but he heard her say something about needing music to dance, among many other things. 

“You don’t always need music to dance, y’know. Sometimes all you need is the hauntingly beautiful sounds of nature,” he said, seemingly zoning out for a second. It creeped Spinel out to a certain degree, but the sparkles in his eyes quickly made up for it.

Spinel pushed herself off of him and made it a point to make sure he knew that she was judging him _big time_ through her narrow eyes. 

“ _ You’re delusional.” _

Steven shrugged, trembling a little under her watchful gaze. “Mmm.  _ Maybe _ ?” 

They stared at each other.

“Let me go- you _ maniac!”  _ She shouted, snatching her hand out from his grip on hers. She pauses, keeping her head down to keep him from seeing her embarrassingly red face.

  
  


She stomped, letting out a noise of mild irritation. It sounded similar to a cat who just had their garbage scraps taken away. It was absolutely adorable to Steven, but he wasn’t about to tell her that, especially since she was all worked up right now.

By then, Spinel already made a beeline for the opposite direction. When she heard walking behind her, she quickly snapped around and scowled angrily at the boy who had previously set her off. It had happened so quick that Steven let out a little yelp of surprise and he held his hands out defensively in front of him. 

If looks could kill, it was clear that he was going to end up accepting that she was leaving, whether he liked it or not.

Spinel had no idea where she was going, but she had to get away from that  _ psycho _ . In her mind, he was weird. Absolutely a nut case. He was always thinking she wanted to dance with him and whatnot…

She didn’t even know how to dance, but she could tell that he didn’t have much experience with it.  _ Even Pink could dance better than that-! _

  
  


And then she found one of those things that the humans like to sit on. If she was remembering clearly, it was called a… ‘ _ bench’.  _ But this wasn’t the standard bench. It was a replica, some sort of sorry excuse for a real bench that she was always seeing on the boardwalk at Beach City. This one just looked like a plain old log of wood, laid down sideways with its random placement as the only indication of it being a place for sitting.

But it was a bench, right? It would have to suffice.

So, Spinel reluctantly took a seat on the bench and questioned just about everything she had ever done since she agreed to staying here on this planet. 

Earth was a  _ darn  _ weird place. 

Why the heck were there tiny beings with wings, just uselessly buzzing around all the time? If they had a purpose other than to be annoying, for Spinel, it sure was hard to tell. Did that have a connection as to why there were  _ weird, _ green things just sticking out of the ground, covering fields and fields of the ground space at a time?! 

Another thing Spinel would always fail to understand were those giant  _ blobs  _ of mass, just floating around in the sky for a reason she couldn’t really see. It was a very confusing time for the pink gem. She had been left unattended by Steven and the gems while they worked on various unimportant things on many occasions, and she was pretty much used to making up her own explanations for everything.

Spinel had wandered into some kind of public park. Even though it was dark out now, there were still a few residents enjoying the nice night. There were some walking around with these weird four-legged furry beings, and there were mostly pairs of them walking side by side, hand in hand... and only a few lonely ones...

There was a gust of wind that kept sweeping through, which mildly annoyed Spinel after three times when it kept rustling her pigtails. This ‘ _ wind’  _ guy was clearly a wimp, and it obviously wanted to fight if it kept messing with her…

It didn’t even show itself! How was she supposed to fight something invisible?! 

  
  


But the others didn’t seem too concerned about it when she looked over her shoulder. In fact, they didn’t even seem phased by it at all. The wind just seemed to brush past them, then it was on its eventful, windy way. 

Then that got Spinel thinking.

Where did it go after that? Where did it stop? Once it was out of sight, it was out of mind… but it was never in sight. None of this was making sense. It just didn’t add up. Was this something everyone knew on Earth? Was this common knowledge that someone should just …  _ know?! _

_ How interesting…  _

Spinel leered at the ground in deep thought. When she looked closer, the brown substance that the ground was made up of, seemed to contain different things as well.

Maybe she should think about this… maybe she could come to her own conclusions about this. Maybe it wasn’t all that hard to understand, if she just paid closer attention.

…

  
  


…

_ Nope. It wasn’t working. _ This was more useless than counting the atoms in her own tears. She didn’t understand this planet one bit.

There was so much science in everything, it was giving her a headache she didn’t even know she could get. 

Maybe she didn’t have to understand everything. Maybe she could just let this place be itself without questioning every little thing…

Maybe Earth was weird to her… but it was home to all the people that lived there. 

Like Steven.

“ _ Weirdo…”  _ she mumbled to herself, letting her gaze fall to the grass before her cheeks got any redder. 

Steven Universe wasn’t the  _ oddest  _ person she’d ever met, but he was certainly way too eccentric for her taste. But, ...that’s admittedly why she found him the most interesting. He was different… relenting, and so considerate. 

Apparently the topic was so thought-provoking that she didn’t even notice she had started to swing her legs while she did a character check on her new friend.

It didn’t take a detective to see that Spinel was no good at friendship and having friends. She was going to have to work at it, but she was thankful that Steven and the Crystal Gems were willing to give her a chance.

The pink gem knew that no one understood her. But that was only because she understood no one. 

Then abruptly, Spinel gets a reality jerker when she feels a hand loom around hers that had been placed beside her on the bench. 

Then she was tense again.

She couldn’t get a reaction out fast enough before she found that it was just  _ him  _ again. “Aagh!  _ You  _ followed me?!” 

“Yeah. I can’t have you getting lost out here. Garnet left me in charge to babys— uh… to keep an eye on you.”

She chuckled dryly. “Thank  _ goodness  _ you didn’t say ‘babysit’. I would  _ not  _ want you sitting on me.” 

He rolled his eyes and made room for himself beside her on the bench by pushing her aside. Spinel just stared at him like he was a runaway from a psych ward. 

They stared at each other silently for a few moments before she fought him back, trying to shove him back over while she mumbled angry Spinel things. He was simply stronger than her, and let her tire herself out until she gave up on trying to shove him away.

Steven chuckled, eliciting another sound from her that was intended to be threatening but was only super-adorable in the end.

Spinel sighed, seeing that she wasn’t about to regain her short lived reign over the bench from Steven. She stood, attempting to walk away before her plans were  _ once again _ foiled when Steven grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down.

  
  


“You know…  _ you should really try relaxing sometime.” _

_... _

He put his arm around her, smiling at her warmly before letting his head rest on top of hers. The gem squirmed, letting out a little surprised squeak when Steven gave his response of tightening his grip on her.

She groaned, realizing that she wasn’t going to escape this one. 

…

“I just…  _ don’t understand.”  _

“Understand what?” He murmured into her hair.

There it was again. The typical Steven treatment. He always made Spinel feel… not smart. She had to actually think about that one. 

_ What didn’t she understand?  _

“I don’t understand the purpose of this… of everything that happens.  _ Here on Earth.” _

  
  


“Spinel, not everything…” he paused mid-sentence to let out a small yawn. 

“Not everything has to have a purpose,” and before the confused gem could protest any further, Steven’s eyes had already drifted closed, and a very light snore followed soon after.

  
  


And suddenly, she got the thought that learning to understand couldn’t be  _ so _ bad.

_ If it meant she could learn more about the boy who helped her find it.  _

It might be worth the while.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to know what you think! Thank you ❤️


End file.
